Wander Through The Darkness [Contract Search!]

[Midori Futotta]

Maru The Puppets of DARKNESS

Maru now walked in the middle of a dark forest, the only light source he had was the pale ghostly moonlight above his head. Wandering through the woodland, the ANBU had sought out to to train in a dark area. An area where not even the light of the moon would seep through. Maru lived his entire shinobi careers through the darkness of the village. He worked to the bone to master his demonic abilities, he managed to learn shadow justu to further his knowledge of the darkness, and he has even created a Nara puppet that can summon the dark dimension! With all these abilities, he still felt like he wasn't where he should be in seeking the darkness. He was good where he was as an average dark shinobi but he wasn't where he wanted to be in showing to both himself and to his teacher's that the DARKNESS was the strongest source of power than any other ability known in this world.

Normally at this time of night, people would usually be ready to sleep, check into their beds and pat their backs on a day well spent. But Maru never slept, he haven't slept since he was 16 years old. The reason behind this was because he didn't need, nor did he need to eat because he was now a living puppet thanks to his good SENIN friend he already shedded his flesh to become more of a possessed inanimate object of sorts. A Ghost In A Shell who's contains a dark soul at its core, with the motivation of consuming everyone in his everlasting darkness. This is what Maru was and what he chose to be.

In this quest for more darkness he's met a dark sage, a Youkai, and know a couple of dark shinobi that had gained a tremendous amount of power through the darkness so it was possible to master this cursed ability. He just needed to train more, look throughout the scrolls, and keep robbing the graves.. Maru studied took a moment to study the forest, admiring the darkness as he continued his walk. The darkness that this forest gave reminded him of a dark hallway in which he could sit and wait to pounce upon his prey. The inky Darkness seemed to only get darker as he wandered through the forest, dead leaves crunching on his feet. “This almost feels like home.” Maru thought out loud to himself, his hand brushing against one of the scrolls around his belt. The chirps of crickets grew louder as Maru studied his surroundings, he stopped to take a look around the forest for a moment.

He was about to keep walking when suddenly his movements began to slow down, this was one irritating thing about this body. “Ugh, again?” Maru groaned, digging in his coat pocket –very slowly– he pulled out a wind up key, stuffing it to the back of his head to turn it. Twist, twist, twist. His movements were slowly coming back to how he normally would move instead of jerking and stumbling all over the place.

WC: 522

 

[Mitsunari Akagi]

YOU HAVE DISCOVERED THE SPIDER CONTRACT, DO YOU ACCEPT OR DENY?​

 

[Midori Futotta]

[[Awesome! I'll accept this challenge!!!]]

 

[Mitsunari Akagi]

Nights like these were few and far between, nights where even a full moon couldn't hope to illuminate the forest floor.


With the crackling of dead leaves underfoot the shinobi had paved his way deep into the forest, each step guided by the next. Only stopping to briefly take in his surroundings, keeping it brief was smart, those caught in the wrong place at the wrong time usually met an untimely end which is why it is always good to stay on the move. However, for longer than a brief moment the shinobi had ceased movement, taking time to wind himself back up.

As he winded himself back to capacity, had he been paying attention to his surroundings, would have noticed that the moonlight's grip around him grow dimmer. However, a single strand of pitch black space had drawn itself upon the ground, in a pathway fashion. The nose of the pathway extended to a small clearing beyond the tall trees.

Strange thing about this clearing in the trees was its complete absence of light, devoid of illumination, details were obscure and would require a closer inspection. However bland the darkness was, the crickets chirping was like a sirens call, enticing and persistent.

 

[Midori Futotta]

He continued to wind himself up back to normal, but being acutely aware of his surroundings he began to notice a sudden change in the atmosphere suddenly gotten darker… he looked over to see a pitch black pathway began to form, seemingly out of nowhere. “What the…?” The dark puppet master narrowed his eyes, seeing that this pathway lead to a clearing. The smart thing to do was to not go down the pathways because it looks dangerous considering that this space had no light. But the darkness seemed inviting, so instead of just wandering aimlessly through the trees he walked down the pitch black pathway. Very.. Very slowly.

He wasn't scared, but at the same time he didn't want to get trapped by whatever was down the end of this pathway. The crickets chirping almost sounded like they were encouraging him to go deeper in which Maru made cautious footsteps up the pathways until he made it to the clearing. Upon closer inspection it there was no light for him to see, not even the moon shined in this shadowed place. Although the shinobi had been used to beings in dark places, he wasn't actually able to see in the dark. Especially not one that he haven't created. This however would be too much of a problem, he at least knew that one justu would help him in this situation.

Maru began to weave hand signs, then balled his hand into a fist before finally create a small sphere red of chakra that began to hover around the area. Scanning the area to see if anything strange had been around. Searchlight is a useful ANBU ninjustu when you're looking for a target trying to hide in the dark, once the sphere finds something it'll concentrated beam of bright light to illuminate the area and expose the target. Standing there, he was wondering if the red sphere would find something strange or was Maru being overly cautious. He will find out soon enough.

 

[Mitsunari Akagi]

Moving down the trail of total darkness with a spotlight, the shinobi would soon see with the naked eye dangling string like substances that hung from above. This of course didn't set off the searchlight as it was a negligible environment. Not until the boy had reached the clearing did the spotlight begin to brighten.

Entering the clearing the shinobi could tell it was just like any other clearing, no trees, no tall grass, and certainly nothing inconceivable looming in the darkness. As the red searchlight perused the perimeter of the clearing its light would reflect off several of the hanging strings he had encountered previously. The searchlight was now brightening against the reflection of so many hanging strings to the point that a large roof above the shinobi made of the same silky material lied tangled through the trees. So compacted these strings were to each other they completely blocked out the moonlight explaining why things were so dark.

As the spotlight shined against the roof of string a low clicking noise began to surround the area. The clicking was like that of crab claws slamming together, except thousands at once. The noise however wasn't overwhelming loud, just rising in volume as time went on. From the sound that had begun to encompass the area, the edge of the clearing was beginning to be covered in the same silky white substance. The spotlight was just bright enough to illuminate the outer edge of the clearing, as distorted figures beyond that continued wrapping the area. Not long after the clicking had started it had stopped. The entirety of the clearing was now encased in some form of string, much like an arena.

From the now silent forest a raspy voice called out to the boy, "And what do we have here?"

 

[Midori Futotta]

As he moved along the trail of pitch blackness with nothing but a red light to guide him, what had been around him were strings. Looked from left to right to see nothing but strings dangling around which for some reason gave the young shinobi seem a bit uneased thinking that there might have been wire traps around. Why else would there be so many strings hanging around, so he began to move more carefully. He wasn't at all a stranger to traps, being in the ANBU he had to avoid certain steps in order to not set off any alarms, not to mention being a puppet master he knew how fatal a trap might be. Best not take any changes.

After a while of walking to the clearing, the area soon became brightened by a chilling blood red light. There were no trees, no grass, nothing but pitch blackness and those same strings he witnessed along his path to this clearing. As he was made aware of his surroundings, Maru saw that these same silky strings weren't just littered throughout the clearing but these strings covered the whole area in some strange dome keeping the light of the moon from shining through! The strings all in strange patterns but this seemed a bit complicated to just be a wire trap, but it at least explained why things were so dark.

click, click, click, click

“Hm?” Maru heard a strange clicking sound surrounding the area. It was not the clicking of wood, nor the clicking of a weapon activating but it was the clicking of something crawling around in the blackness.

Click, click

“What the hell was that?” Maru began to cost himself in his demonic aura to attempt to scare whatever it was that was making that horrible clicking noise away. But the clicking only gotten louder, and louder! Maru was able to see a few figures covering the area in that weird string seeing that whatever had trapped him here had sealed off the exit preventing him from leaving this strange arena. Then he heard a voice, a raspy voice that finally called out to him now that it had trapped its prey in its prison. Irritated Maru called out to whatever it was that trapped him. “Come on out, chicken! I'm not in the mood for you games.” He asserted, putting on a brave face even though he was pretty much caught.

 

[Mitsunari Akagi]

As the shinobi casted his voice into the darkness, questioning the ominous being, the overhead celining of string began to unravel in a vortex pattern, completely unwinding. A sharp talon of moonlight pierced the void like clearing, illuminating the inside of the cage of string.

The shinobi would easily be able to tell this was like a cocoon of sorts, the material around him appearing like a cobweb, the overhead hanging strings were really just loose threads of spiderweb, even the inside of the cocoon had full fledged webs strung from side to side. Following the unraveling the same voice now with an expression of laughter spoke, "Hah! Games? Why don't you like games?" Now able to see the strings, following the strange voices question the strings and cocoon itself began to vibrate, shaking spontaneously.

Without warning from hole above, a single dark figure was tossed to the feet of the boy, upon closer examination as the light illuminated its form, the boy would see a faceless doll of sorts. It was a large wooden figurine, that would model clothes or hold up signs at a place of buisness or be used as a training dummy. It had joints at its: neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, thighs, knees, and ankles, slowly begging to vibrate in synchronization to the cocoon around them.

Following the doll's drop, its various mechanics seemed to spring to life, each divet and bolt in its body rattled into existence as it took stand onto its feet, raising its arms in a combative stance, waving the boy toward him.

The voice rang out once more, "I love games, we should play one shouldn't we?" With the last words the doll flicked its jointed wrist in a playful gesture before it started to dance on its toes throwing jabs at the air as if he was shadowboxing. A final time now the voice sounding more serious and less mischevious, "I took an interest too you because you avoid the normal, I found it quite strange when I saw you wandering the forests at this time, which is why I led you here, prove yourself to me for I have a proposition to make you if you can succeed..." The doll no longer dancing took a more serious stand positioning its feet forward and its arms up in a guard now standing nearly still, whilst the cocoon now only gently vibrated.

 

[Midori Futotta]

Maru had called out to whatever had trapped him here, but got no reply. Moonlight spilled in from the ceiling of this strange cage that he was trapped in, exposing that he was in

some kind of cocoon made of… cobwebs. The strings he saw when heading into this place was actually loose bits of cobwebs. Whatever wanted him here seemingly was toying with him, his eyes darting from left to right to find where this thing was but it refused to show."Tch” Maru’s teeth clicked, seeing something tossed at his feet.

Looking down at it, he knew what it was just by the sight of it. A faceless doll like figure, the kinds of dolls he would used when he was first learning the art of puppetry, each limb was jointed. Maru watched as the lifeless figure suddenly sprung to life, its movements made each joint rattle as it stood to its feet, taking a combatic stance. Maru couldn't help but smirk at the unseen being wishing to challenge him right here and now as some game. Maru decided to humor the unseen creatures challenge to see what proposition it had to offer. "Fine, I guess since you went through all the trouble in leading me here, I'll accept your little challenge.” He said, confidence oozing from his voice. Looking at the puppet before him, the dark puppet master chakra threads to a black scroll on his belt, then a dramatic flick of his wrist, he pulled from his belt a black scroll to the palm of his hand. “So how will I be proving myself, chicken?” The boy mocked.

 

[Mitsunari Akagi]

An unseen grin would creep across the face of whoever's voice was penetrating the cage of webs. With a quick flick of the doll's right arm, it now extended its hand with an open palm toward the shinobi, "Prove yourself by smashing this doll to bits, than we can talk." The ominous voice sounded excited and hyper, preparing to jump at the bit to get this fight started.

From the wrist joint, the hand flipped upward, folding itself against the forearm revealing a hole in the arm of the doll. After this action the voice would yell out one last time as the cage began to vibrate again, "Begin!"

With the loud boom of sound reverberating around each crevice of the cobweb, from the orifice that had been revealed on the doll a large exhalation of smoke spewed from it, covering the entire half of the arena on the doll side making vision incredibly difficult to make use of. As the smoke built up it became much like a wall of fog pushing toward the shinobi slowly. However, as soon as the fog had covered the dolls half of the arena, many cogs and gears could be heard shifting and colliding until a loud volley of metal clanks and scrapes pierced the fog. Erupting from the fog wall was another wall of at least 20 objects consisting of shurikens, kunais that had been launched presumably from the enemy doll. Upon closer inspection in these few seconds, with a trained eye one may even see a small bit of light reflecting off the trail of the weapons.

In this brief moment of chaos, the shinobi would have to either improvise or become mince meat to a wall of projectiles.

 

[Midori Futotta]

left topic due to being out of the country

 

[Tomomi]

Due to leaving the topic in the middle of the search, Maru has elected to fail his Spider Contract Search. He may do another search when he wishes.​